Unconditional
by 60sec400
Summary: Ric Grayson stops taking the medication the Neurologist prescribed him. He's forgetting things. Forgetting the little things. And the big things, too. How could he ever forget he had an Uncle? It doesn't make sense, but all of a sudden the thing he needs most is to find out what happened to him. At the end of that decision, Ric comes to a conclusion.


**Happy New Year; Frohes Neues Jahr; Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh!**

**Enjoy this short story, sorry I haven't updated shit! But this was a fun one to write. Interesting, too. I enjoyed it. DC does not give Dick Grayson enough credit. I also have a Dick Grayson discord server but I can't put links here, so you can message me or look on my tumblr for a link for that. I'm really sorry. Kinda a pain but it's fun. My tumblr is thetrackrunner. All one work. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

* * *

Ric Grayson woke up with the worst headache he had had in a while. Training your body to take in copious amounts of alcohol that it hadn't before was tougher than he had anticipated.

(He tried not to think about his parents, really, because while he knew this… other family didn't like the drinking, he doubted _they_ would either.)

(His dad had enjoyed a glass of bourbon in the evening though. That was basically the same thing, right?)

He groaned, rolling over, throwing his hands over his eyes as the sun hit his face, and wished he could've slept in way longer. His shift wasn't until the evening anyway, he didn't _need _to be awake right now. Squinting and rolling back over in the opposite direction, Ric shoved his blankets off himself and rubbed at his eyes, blearily looking around the room.

It had been in worse shape. Personally, he didn't really care. Didn't give a shit.

(A flash of something hit his mind. A nice tower. Pizza boxes and video game controllers left on the couch.)

He pulled himself from the bed and stumbled over to the bathroom to lean over the sink, breathing heavily. He still couldn't exactly look at himself in the mirror. He'd always had long hair as a kid. Longer hair, anyway. But… but he woke up and suddenly everyone was expecting someone else and he didn't want to _be– _didn't know how to be who they were expecting.

He glanced up at the mirror.

(His mother smoothed over his curly hair, muttering under her breath, "_Mo spideóg bheag_", she said softly.)

Ric shook his head and ran his hands over his head, which had grown out over the past few months. Half-tempted to keep it long because it felt right, Ric thought he would get it cut again out of spite. But. Well.

He glanced away from the mirror. Spiteful against who?

Washing his face with water and drying it on the towel, he head down to the kitchen. The room was in less than stellar shape. Tired eyes wandered over how empty it felt. What did they say about his stuff? It got blown up?

Right.

Did he feel like making food?

(…..these pancakes taste great, Alfred!...)

Not really. Ric shuffled over to the couch and sat down half on a sweater. He pulled it out from under him and tossed it over the backside of the couch and leaned his head back. God this headache was not going away.

A clock ticked on the corner.

Outside, someone honked on their car horn.

Inside was quiet. Soft tick, tick, tick, ticking of the clock synched up with the pounding on his headache. Ric threw his hands over his eyes again, pressing in, hoping it would provide some relief. But the pressure did nothing, and Ric let his hands fall limp onto the couch. Wasn't he allowed one nice thing?

Couldn't that be a rule somewhere?

He checked the time on the ticking, ticking clock to find it was only eleven in the morning. The headache kept pounding.

Next to him, having been forgotten about when he'd returned home, his phone buzzed. Ric didn't turn to look at it. It buzzed again. And then again. Shoving it away and rubbing his eyes _again_, Ric heaved himself off the couch and toward the kitchen. Maybe he needed water or… or something.

He needed to not be alone, ideally.

A sudden settling buzzing settled over his head on top of the pounding and Ric breathed once, twice, three times, four times and then he sighed, clenching his fists. He needed. He needed… he needed what?

(Bruce! Come on! Finish up your office stuff and pay attention!)

(I'm coming, chum.)

Family?

A startling thought hits Ric.

(A gunshot? No no no nonononono)

(it was…. a…. *SNAP*)

Ric twitches.

The clock ticks.

Blood and woodchips are a stain.

"Uncle Rick," Ric mutters, "I don't… remember what… why wouldn't I remember?"

His phone buzzes again.

Ric leans over and puts his head against his hands, breathing, heaving, to catch his breathe. Does he have a number he could call? Where would he get that information? Is his Uncle still alive, still on life-support? Still…?

Still what?

Ric stumbles up and. He turns around and looks around and. Ric stumbles forward and.

He falls and sits back down.

He rolls his shoulders and lays his head back against the back of the couch. Who did he call?

Mr. Wayne. He could call Mr. Wayne.

Would he know?

Ric breathed out, and then in, and then out again in time with the ticking, ticking clock. If Ric had supposedly lived with the man in a… what had he read? Legal ward situation? Then he would have known, probably, what the situation with his Uncle was.

Family. Blood family.

Ric twitches and rubs his neck uncomfortably. The circus had been his family too. They hadn't been related by blood. Ric. Ric knew it didn't matter.

But they had left him too.

Like.

(This is Mr. Wayne, Richard, you'll be going with him until we can find you a permanent home, okay?)

(I thought… Haley?)

(Mr. Haley isn't allowed to see you, Richard.)

Ric jumps up and grabs the keys to his cab and a jacket. He's still in his pajamas and a t-shirt, slippers haphazardly slipped on from this morning. He needs to leave. Get out of the apartment, get out of the city probably. He needs to not hear the ticking. He needs this headache to go away. His meds. He hasn't been taking his meds. The other day he woke up and the whole day had gone by. His boss had called six times.

But he didn't want his meds, necessarily, so he moves. They haven't helped anything. Except for the painkillers, but the last thing he wants is to be dependent on those.

He thunders down the stairs in sync with the pounding, needing to leave. It feels hot in the apartment, but it's only late September. It's cool out even now. He knows he looks out of place in his plaid pants and old grey top, his dads leather jacket thrown on top. He doesn't exactly give a rat's ass about his appearance, he hasn't really at all since he got released from the hospital.

Alone. By himself.

Well. No. He'd gone to… to Wayne Manor. Not home, never home, home was eating in Hotels and their family's trailer, listening to his parents and aunt and uncle chat.

Did he have an aunt and uncle?

Yes. Yes of course, what was he thinking? How could he forget them?

Karla. Rick. Johnny.

(When he turned sixteen, he sadly thought that he was now the same age his cousin had been when he'd died.)

His dad drank bourbon after dinner. His mom played music sometime and sang with him. He'd go out with his cousin Johnny. He remembered looking up to his cousin, who was eight years older and so very much an adult.

Home was family.

And who was this new family that didn't even?

They didn't?

…

Ric stumbles into his cab, fumbling with the ignition to get it to go, to get out. He doesn't even know if he's welcome at that house, at the manor, but he doesn't know where else to go. His head still pounds against his skull, but he gets the keys in the ignition and peels out of his spot. Someone behind him honks and Ric winces.

He doesn't particularly care about the traffic now, and he's a shitty driver anyway. He wonders absentmindedly if that's a new thing or if he's just always been a shitty driver. He wonders what's habit and what's just instinct. He knows he wouldn't be able to handle the looks.

Ric twitches again.

He definitely hadn't been able to handle them. He just wanted. Just wanted what? To be accepted? Yes. He wanted to be accepted. By family.

He needed to see family and to see family that meant he had to go see Mr. Wayne.

(You can call my Bruce, Richard.)

(Well, _I guess _you can call me Dick, Bruce.)

Ric swerves onto the Highway to head over the bridge. Gotham isn't really that far away. On a good day when the weather is clear and it's sunny, but only in the winter and early spring (how'd he remember that?), you could see Gotham over the large harbor. It shouldn't take him longer than an hour, he thinks, if he moves fast.

Why can't he remember which Hospital his Uncle is at? Shouldn't he know that?

He didn't remember.

He hated his stupid memory. He hated that he didn't know anything anymore about anything at all. He hated that things were all mixed up. He hated this car and the bar, and he hated looking in the mirror and that ticking, ticking, clock and he hated not knowing _who he was. _

He felt like he did. But then. Everything felt all wrong. But then. He felt right too, like himself. But this headache didn't relinquish and so he carried on.

He flipped his blinker on and crossed four lanes of highway. A car slammed on his brakes behind him and another honked loudly for a little too long. He didn't even care. He kept going, stepping on the gas and hoping he was right about the instinct.

His headache kept on.

The drive went simultaneously faster than it ever did before and slower than a lifetime. It was not until he took exit 23a without thinking and was driving into a neighborhood called the Palisades like some rich fuck that he even paused a moment to think about what he was doing.

What had Mr. Wayne done for him in the time he'd known him?

(Come here, Dick, you can sit next to me, if you'd like.)

Did Dick even have to know, if it was family?

He stopped in front of beautiful iron gates, the large manor home on the hill overlooking the rest of the neighborhood and the beginning of the city. He peered up at it and, for a second, wondered if he would be un-welcome. But then.

("Hold your head up high and walk forward, Dick," his mother whispered.)

He suddenly felt as if he had betrayed her.

Ric rushed out of the cab and looked up at the gate and then over to the small code box to the left. He stumbled to it, knees weak, and punched in a code. Any code. He tried anything that he could remember until something stuck and the gates opened. Before he even thought about it, he was walking through and up the long driveway.

He regretted it about halfway through the walk up, but it was too late to turn back. The headache was getting worse and his knees still felt weak. It was chilly out too, and his sweatpants and slippers did almost nothing to keep him warm. Was he welcome? He… he hoped so.

(This is your home now too, Dick.)

(The room is bigger than their whole trailer.)

He didn't know what he would do if he wasn't. He just. He wanted his Uncle. He needed to see his Uncle. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about Uncle Rick.

(Uncle Rick started a conversation with every waiter, sales associate, and person they passed in the grocery store. He could play two full songs on the guitar, and half of one because the "chorus was too hard, Dicky, but that's alright, we can enjoy what we already know. Helps if that's your favorite part.". He thought his son was too serious for his own good and bought him little joke books that Dick knew Johnny would segue away under his mattress to read later. He bought Aunt Karla and Mary (Máire… that was her name) flowers every other big city they visited and knew how to say "hello" in every language on the International and European tour.)

(*_SNAP*)_

(Rick! Karla screeched.)

(Mary's (Máire's) eyes widened and her finger tips brushed her sons' hands, both of them reaching out to each other. The swing never completed fully and at the very last second, right after the _SNAP _and the screech of her sister-in-law, Máire pulled her arms away, just barely, but just enough to graze her son's fingers one last time.)

Ric suddenly made it to the grand staircase that spilled straight down from the large portal door. He felt nauseous. His headache thumped and thumped like that ticking, ticking clock and he pushed each lead foot up the stone steps and his hand fell limp against the door. He leaned against it and breathed heavy, trying to catch his breath in cold chilly air.

Throwing his head back against the door, he closed his eyes and hoped anything, _anything,_ would work. But then he turned around and slammed his fist once, twice, three times into the door and then sunk into the wood. He barely felt the door open behind him and then there was a startled yelp from whomever had pulled it open as they discovered Ric sitting there.

"No, no," he muttered, "I'm fine, I'm fine. I just–," he struggled to stand up on his own, a hesitant hand resting very briefly on his shoulder before he pulled it away. Before him was a boy he hadn't yet seen before, several years younger with dark hair and dark eyes, who looked pale and a bit distraught.

"Um, come in," the boy said, moving to the side.

Ric has gathered his wits about him enough to stand and move forward into the very rather grand foyer of the home. It's so. It isn't gaudy, because it's real. Ric's seen pictures of gaudy looking mega-mansions that are half-terrible design and half-splurging to look good at best. Here, at least, the dark wood of the stair-railing is hand-carved and beautiful, and it almost looks soft.

He wants to touch it.

(Dick drags his fingers over the railing as Mr. Pennyworth, the Butler, leads him upstairs. The wood is like he first thought; soft and worn down. He likes it though.)

(To him it's new.)

The boy closes the door behind him, and Ric breathes in everything about this. He's still.

Still lost?

"Where's Mr. Wayne?" he asks, barely, as his voice sounds out of breath and short.

"Mr. Wayne," the boy says with some sadness, "Right. Bruce… he's in the den, with… with the rest of ou– my siblings."

Ric gestures to him a little. "I'd like," he clears his throat and nearly folds over, "I'd like to talk to him, please. I can wait here. Where's the butler?"

The boy stares at him with somber eyes, "I'll go grab him."

He disappears into a hallway, footsteps fading as Ric's headaches get worse. He barely even registers time has passed until Bruce Wayne appears with, like, six fucking kids behind him.

"Richard," Mr. Wayne says slowly, his steps shortening a little as he nears what appears to be a very panicked man.

"Christ," another kid mutters, barely a few years younger than Ric but enough for there to be a significant difference, and he looks Ric over. He doesn't. Ric is pretty sure he recognizes him from somewhere.

(Where you headed?)

(Just the docks. Eastside. I'll pay cash.)

"Mr. Wayne," Ric says miserably. "Good. Good. I need to talk to you. Didn't know the whole gang would come along for the ride."

"They miss you," Wayne says seriously, "And Tim looked panicked. With good reason. You don't–."

"Where's my Uncle?" he snapped, cutting the Billionaire off before he could finish the thought with any sort of concern for Ric.

Wayne stops short. He blinks. Then, "What?"

Ric sniffs and glances away, "Yeah. My Uncle. Uncle Rick. He's not awake yet because I would've lived with him instead of you or I would've gone with him or something when I woke up from this. So, he's still gotta be," he shakes his head, "I just don't remember the hospital so just tell me the hospital and I'll drive over or something and… and," Ric breathes in a whole lotta something and for a moment exists in a world where… where what?

Then it comes.

"Oh," he says.

Then he falls to his knees.

He grips the side of his head and squeezes his eyes shut. "Oh, oh no," he mutters, groaning. He feels someone kneel down in front of him, but he can't bring it in him to look up or even open his eyes in the first place.

"No," he groans.

"Dick," Mr. Wayne said, and Ric barely hears him between the pounding, "Have you been taking your meds?"

"No," he whispers, still clutching at his head, "They make me forget."

_("__Mo spideóg bheag,_" his mother whispered as she tucked him in and laid a hand on his head.)

He felt a hand rest on his head, on his hair, and brush it back.

(You're doing well, Robin.)

"_Le do thoil_," he mutters, "_M'uncail? Agus uisce? Le do thoil?"_

"Dick, I need you to sit up," Mr. Wayne said, pulling Ric forward.

"No," he whispered back, "Please. I just want to see him."

"Get him some water, Alfred, please," Mr. Wayne said, "He asked for it."

"What'd he say?"

"Grayson?"

"Damian, you should go."

"Don't tell me what to do–."

"Damian."

"I should stay with Grayson. We left him alone for too long!"

Ric _reaches_ for that voice. Because it's right. He's lonely. He wanted family, woke up to a different one, one who wanted someone he wasn't, and then didn't understand when. When he didn't _couldn't _wasn't _isn't _that person anymore. Not anymore. Just. Different. Newer. But still. But not still him. But still him. He would only ever be who he was. He hadn't exactly wanted them either.

But Ric is lonely. He thinks he was maybe even a little lonely before all of this.

His outstretched hand meets a sweater and he pulls the little boy into his side.

"Damian," he whispered.

"Grayson?" the boy asked. "Father is worried."

Ric looks blearily in the direction of the boys' father. "Mr. Wayne," he musters to get out. It's a bit too quiet.

"He's your father too," Damian said very quietly, afraid the others will hear, "I'm okay with sharing. And… and you had him first."

"I want to go home," Dick whispered. "Please. Don't leave me alone."

The small boy next to him is replaced by Wayne. By.

By Wayne.

He picks Ric up and gestured for the other man from the cab to grab the other side. Together they lift him off the floor and pull him upstairs. His room, still untouched, still loved. Still unspoken about and un-entered except by a small black and green eyed little boy who would curl up in the sheets and hope the owner of the room would one day walk back in.

Instead, though, he was half-dragged and half-carried in and laid down, delirious and tired. His head pounded and his ears rang and his whole body felt like lead.

Overhead, he hears a brief conversation.

"He's delirious, Bruce!"

"He said he hasn't been taking his meds."

"Well, shit, if I looked like that after getting off them I wouldn't either! What the hell did that woman prescribe him?"

"…I don't know."

"What do you mean you _don't know_?!"

Ric's eyes flutters. Please, he whispers, stop fighting.

Please, he thinks, make the pounding stop.

("You're okay, Dick," a voice whispers. "Dad?" "Yeah, buddy. Let's get you to bed.)

(Come on, chum, bedtime.)

He wakes up some time later when the world is dark, and his room has only the soft glow of a small bedside lamp to give him any light. He's along but under the covers of a blanket.

The first time he'd come here, Ric had been suspicious. The manor home was too nice and stately, it wasn't home. He didn't have time to adjust to it, to move through the motions of what to expect, and had been thrust into it by his "family". His doctor, the lovely blonde woman who ended up telling him to get the hell away from Gotham had been so supportive.

But the medication. The drugs. He was forgetting regular new things too.

He'd forgotten his Uncle.

Ric didn't know how he could forget his Uncle. His whole other side of the family. He didn't like… he didn't understand how he could forget him. Forget that he'd died in the end, too.

The door to the room creaked open and Mr. Wayne entered, slowly and silently, with some crackers and a glass of water. He stopped short only upon seeing wide blue eyes staring at him from the bed.

"You're awake," he comments, laying the crackers and water down on the bedside table.

Ric's eyes flicker in the direction of the food, but he knows he wouldn't be able to keep it down. Instead he shifts himself up and leans against the headboard, grabbing the water and drinking the whole thing in one go.

"Thanks," he whispers, setting the glass down.

"No problem, chum," Mr. Wayne says, and Ric twitches. "Do you mind if I stay?"

"…No," Ric says, and he means it.

They sit in silence for a long while. At first, it's awkward. Ric is in an unfamiliar place with a man he doesn't really know, who is sitting on the edge of the bed like a stiff pole. But then they sit for a little longer and Ric's shoulder drops, the man loses his tension in his face, and it becomes comfortable.

He stares straight ahead, hoping that they won't have to look at each other and start talking. He doesn't mind the silence. Silence is good. It's okay. Normally he feels the need to fill it up, he always had, he supposed a traumatic brain injury isn't going to change that, but he knows… he knows this man needs silence, and Ric doesn't really mind obliging right now.

"I'm glad you came here," Mr. Wayne says finally, breaking the silence Ric thought both of them had agreed to.

He blinks blearily through sudden sleep. "Yeah. Well–."

"I don't quite understand why though."

Ric blinks again. He doesn't understand why he feels so tired. "I figured if you really had… raised me… here. Then you would know where my… what had happened to my Uncle," he explains.

"Ah," is all he says. Then he looks a little expectantly at Ric.

Ric doesn't say anything at all. The look falls a little and Mr. Wayne turns away.

"You can't keep doing that," Ric says.

"Doing what?"

"Looking at me like you want me to meet you half-way and read your mind. I don't _know _you, not like that. I've met with you, what, only a few times and I can see you doing it. I don't know what you're thinking and feeling. I mean, I can guess and move on from there, but I don't want to, and I don't like the expectation that I have to. Why do I have to do all the work, Mr. Wayne?"

"Bruce," the man says, voice very quiet, "Please, call me Bruce. I don't like. I don't like Mr. Wayne, not from you."

"What was I to you?" Ric asks. "I think I know. But I want to hear you say it."

But Mr. Wayne does not say it. He's quiet for a long time, maybe a little too long, and some part of Ric feels inexplicitly lost.

"You would already know."

"But I don't," Ric says instantly, "I don't know, and I need to hear you say it. Why can't you say it? Why do I just have to know? Why can't you meet me half-way?"

"You're my son," Mr. Wayne rasps, "My oldest. My first. My kid."

Ric doesn't look at him, can't, so he stares dead straight ahead at the windows that run on the opposite wall of his bed. They're larger than life and completely dark.

"Ah. I'm your son," he says, lightly, "John Grayson was my father."

"My father was Thomas Wayne, but so was Alfred in every way that counts," Bruce says immediately.

Ric glances at him, eyes hard. "Why would you abandon me then?"

"You didn't want us," Bruce says, voice quiet and… and sad. It's very sad. "You didn't want us. It wasn't like we were or, rather, that you and I and your– my other kids, were… related in the way that you were used to."

"What about every way that counts?" Ric half snaps.

"That works both ways, I think," Bruce says.

Ric jerks back away from Mr. Wayne a little, not expecting that response. Instead, he focuses again on those black, black windows.

"You're my son," Mr. Wayne says quietly, "And I… I love you."

"Please leave," Ric rasps, "I can't–."

"Alright," Mr. Wayne says. He grabs Ric's hand, and Ric doesn't move it even though the movement is hesitant and light, and squeezes it. "I shouldn't have left you. I thought that was what you wanted. I made a mistake. I hope you'll forgive me."

"Leave," Ric whispers. He closes his eyes.

(Love is unconditional, _mo spideóg bheag,_ even if people go away for a little bit, that doesn't mean they don't love you. Sometimes, they just need to love themselves for a second too, before they can get back to loving you.)

(Karla grabbed her husband's hands and twirled in them, laughing loud and open. Máire sat to the side, playing her guitar, as John Grayson clapped his hands and grinned at his sister-in-law and brother. Dick giggled, wrapped in his cousin's arms, watching his Aunt and Uncle sing and dance across the trailer.)

("Hey," his cousin called, "Lil'D! Watch this!")

Ric woke up to a weight beside him. The little boy with the green eyes sat in the bed next to him, passed out, and clearly exhausted. He was leaning into Ric's back. A bit presumptuous, he thought, but this was a kid; the last thing he was going to do was kick him off the bed. Shuffling over, he made room for them both.

"Grayson?" the kid mumbled.

"Ah," he whispered, "Sorry, kid. Didn't mean to wake you."

Green eyes peered up at him. "Do you really not remember me?"

"I'm sorry, kid."

"Damian," the boy mumbled, "I'm not just… some kid."

Ric feels guilt shoot up him and he winces, glancing away in the dark. The light had at some point been turned off. It must be around three in the morning.

"Well," he hears himself saying, "Not-Just-Some-Kid, what was I to you, exactly? You're Mr. Wayne's real kid, right?"

Damian shoots up, face contorting into something akin to anger. "Only I can make blood-son jokes."

"It wasn't a joke."

"Yes, a joke has to be funny."

"I wasn't joking–."

Damian waves him away, moving a little further from him in the bed, but going so far as to put the covers over his legs. He clearly wasn't going anywhere, even if Ric wanted him too. Whatever. It wasn't… well, not whatever, but if the kid wanted the bed than Ric was happy to sleep on a couch somewhere.

"You didn't answer my question, though," Ric says, a little irritated. His headache has mostly gone though, and he feels. Clear. Clearer than he has in days. Maybe even weeks.

The kid, Damian, stills. He brings his knees up to his chest and, in a way that Ric finds almost amusing, stares dead straight out the window. "Does it matter?"

"We're not–."

"We don't have to be, _you _taught me that. You taught me that it didn't matter. We are what… what we are regardless of labels or blood."

"I guess so," Ric admits, "Family was always so important to me."

"You assume I do not know that. It's why I'm here. We're family."

Ric doesn't speak for a long while. He shuts his mouth and leans back against the headboard and wonders about a lot of things.

(Robin means Family.)

He wonders about Damian and… and Bruce. He wonders about the one from the cab and the boy, Tim he thinks, who answered the door and the girl and the dark-skinned boy and wonders about how they were all family. He had never thought about choosing family.

(Two men in red and a woman in all black and a man he's sure had gills and… and a home.)

But his head feels clear now. And he suddenly likes the idea of choosing family. Of a new one. Why did he have to be alone? Even if he had felt… lonely… he no. No. He had felt lonely without _this_ one. Did he not realize that ache he felt wasn't just from his first family, but maybe from losing the second one too? Even if he didn't remember them?

(Love is unconditional, _mo spideóg bheag,_ even if you go away for a little bit, that doesn't mean you don't love them. Sometimes, you just need to love yourself for a second, before you can get back to loving them too.)

"What were we?" he whispers, not realizing he has moved his hand to rest it on the boy's shoulder.

"I don't think either of us really know," the boy says, very softly, like saying even that aloud will make it untrue or even far too open and candid.

He needs the assurance. "Even if–."

"It did not matter how you got here. Or why. It was just that you were here, always here, and it didn't matter. You were you and you were constant, and you were here. And I still want you here; please, Grayson?" Damian turns to look at him with such wide eyes, pleading almost with Ric.

It is not unlike remembering getting the call from the hospital saying his Uncle was dead that Ric has a moment of revelation like he had before in foyer. But this one is happier and lighter, and Ric is happy to accept it. "Okay, Lil'D." And it feels right, this time. For once, it is not sad. "Okay."

When he wakes up, he still isn't alone. Damian is there, passed out under the blankets. Ric feels even clearer and better, lighter even, so he tosses over his blankets and stands and stretches. He always stretches, in the morning, and he does so this morning too. It's one of those things that just feels right.

He's standing and fully stretched by the time someone knocks on his door and slowly cracks it open. He's greeted by tall cabbie guy, who Ric knows, _knows, _has appeared in his cab several times.

He glances quickly to the side and shuts the door, nodding a little as he spots Damian. "Demon-brat is here."

"You've been in my cab," Ric says, barely acknowledging the clearly negative nickname.

"Yeah, you're a shit driver."

Ric puts his hands on his hips, scowls, and turns away. "What's your name, again? Because whatever bullshit you gave me last time probably isn't true."

"Jason," the man says quietly, looking Ric up and down. "Uh, Jason Todd."

Ric pops his shoulder one last time. "So, you're… what? My…?"

"Brother," Jason said, "I'm the second youngest. I was I think twelve and Bruce took me in. You were seventeen, or eighteen, I can't remember."

"Ah," Ric nods, "So were we close?"

Jason leans against the door and looks away. "I think so yeah. I don't really, ah, look," he huffs, "I died, kinda. And that made me, coming back, it made it… it hard to know what I actually knew. But I started to piece together," he huffs again and nervously touches the end of his shirt, "We were… closer than I thought."

"Oh," Ric says, "Sorry. You know. That you died."

Jason shrugs, "It was a while ago. Don't worry, ah, don't worry about it." He switches the subject fast. Clearly, talking things through in this family is a no-no. Another difference. "Bruce was looking for Damian."

Ric gestures to the bed. "Woke up last night with him there. We talked a bit," he glanced at Jason, "It was… enlightening. Does the name 'Lil'D' mean anything to you?"

Jason tilts his head at him a little, still leaning against the door as if it's a viable escape route from whatever this is, but he's relaxed so Ric isn't worried about him bolting. "It's your nickname for Damian. Why?"

Ric jutted his chin at Damian, still resting, "Just felt right, I guess. My cousin, Johnny, he used to call me that too." He falls silent a little, thinking about that.

(Hey, Dick, you finished with that book yet?)

(Johnny! Give it back _anois!_)

He had thought, when he'd been released from the hospital, that the two "families" were mutually exclusive, totally different from each other and not the same at all. But. But he was that connection. He drew the strings through both of them, weaved them through each other, and had clearly… he'd made them both important.

He was that connection.

Just because a family had problems didn't mean it wasn't still good. But these people, even though Dick was here, they were so different from his family. Even if he was the connection, they were just_ so_ different.

Jason blinked. "Oh. I didn't know that."

"Thought we were close?"

"Closer than I thought. Still piecing it together. And you don't talk about, well, I don't know? Your cousin a lot."

Ric frowns. But at that moment Damian wakes up, mumbling about "Grayson", and sits up and rubs his eyes. Jason looks at the kid, nicknamed "Demon-brat" apparently, and pulls himself from the door, crossing his arms.

"Todd," Damian mumbles, tired, "Grayson…" he looks at Ric up and down and frown, apprehensive. "You're not leaving, are you?" Immediately he hops off the bed and trots right up to Ric and looking right up to him. "You can't leave yet, you've been gone too long. Todd and Drake are adequate enough, but they aren't you."

"Wow, kid," Jason snorts, "That's the nicest thing I've ever heard you say and it was literally a mean thing about me."

Damian scowls at him.

Ric glances down at Damian and smiles, very softly, but it is a smile. "Drake? He another one I missed?"

"Tim," Jason answers, "His last name is Drake. Damian over here refuses to call anyone by their first name. Disassociation 'cause like we're not important, or something."

"I hate that you go by that asinine nickname anyway, I have no qualms about calling you Grayson," Damian said matter-of-factly. "Why you went by the other one, I'll never know."

"My parents," Ric blurted. "Cause like my Uncle was Uncle Rick. So. I don't know, actually. That was just my name."

Damain shook his head. "No, no, this is fine. I can accept this. Grayson is admirable anyway."

"Thanks, Lil'D."

Damian beamed and grabbed Ric's wrist, pulling him forward. "Now I get to show you the family, if you'd like. You've met Todd now, and so you need to meet Drake and Cain and Brown and Thomas–."

"Duke," Jason cut in, and while it was clearly an attempt to clarify a nickname, Ric isn't sure if he means Thomas or Duke is the first name.

"–and all my pets. Gordon–."

"Babs," Ric whispered, "She's the red-head, right? We agreed that… it would be nice to see each other again. She said she wants to get to know me."

"Yeah," Jason says, "Babs. And I'd wait on the family, give Ric some time," he says to Damian.

(I'm sorry, Dick, I'm sorry. I wish you could stay with us, but they won't… listen, kiddo. They won't let you stay with us, because we aren't a "good environment" for you. I know you know that's not true. We're you're family too. We won't be gone forever, we'll miss you more than life, okay?)

(He remembered his family being brought to Wayne Manor, buried in the family lot.)

"I think there's somewhere I need to go," he says slowly, "But you can join me if you want?"

Damian frowned. "Where are you going?"

"Think I need to visit some people," Ric says, "Might do me some good. You can come too, if you'd like?" he says to Jason.

"Had enough of Graveyard's I think," Jason says quietly.

Ric nods and Jason leaves and so he and Damian make their way to the Graveyard. It's still early enough in the day the sun hasn't peaked above the trees. And it's slightly cloudy, so everything is lit almost evenly, but softly. They don't really speak. Unlike before, with Damian's father–.

(Bruce isn't. Dick isn't ready for a dad. Not right now. But his mom used to say that "not right now" wasn't final, and it was always best to wait to be ready. But one couldn't put it off forever, better to acknowledge it and embrace it than wait and lose it.)

–, Dick and Damian's silence was immediately comfortable. It wasn't awkward at first and then became better, it simply was just good. So, they walked together and quietly through the path and came upon the Graveyard. Ric didn't even need to think about where he was going before they appeared in front of six tombstones, all labeled with the same date except for one.

"You been down here before?" Ric asks Damian.

The boy doesn't answer for a minute before nodding and pointing to a small grave some few feet away where Ric suddenly remembers Martha and Thomas Wayne are buried. Even in the cloudy, low light he can make out Damian's name in the stone.

"You too, huh," he mutters. "Does everyone in this family come back?"

"Just Todd and I, and father I suppose. No one has managed to kill you, I don't think," he answers, voice very quiet. "But then again, you were Batman too."

Dick stares down at his parent's grave, dead-eyed. Then he moves them over and looks at his cousins. It was weird, being older. Johnny had seemed larger than life. "Was I?" he whispers.

"I was your Robin."

"Robin," Ric says, "Batman and Robin."

"They called you and Father the 'Dynamic Duo'. The rest of us too, but it was your title. You defined it."

"Robin," Dick says, "My mother called me Robin."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Damian look at him sharply. The boy's thick brows are furrowed over green eyes and he peers up at Ric like he isn't sure he's telling the truth. Ric stares dutifully down at the graves ahead of them, hands still shoved in the pockets of his sweatpants. He hopes he looks nonchalant but knows he probably looks as miserable as he's felt the past few days.

Damian doesn't back down. "What do you mean?"

"_Mo spideóg bheag_," Dick says, and saying the words out loud makes him swell with pride. His mother had been so proud of her language. Ric wishes he spoke it more. "It means, 'my little robin', because I flew like they did, and I was born on the first day of spring. Or they were her favorite bird," he shrugs, "but I think she told me the first bit to make it something really special."

"Which word means Robin?"

"Spideóg. S-p-i-d-e-o-with-a-fada-g. Bheag. B-h-e-a-g. That means small or little."

Damian blinks. "Bh?"

"Makes a v or a w sound."

"And she called you that?"

"All the time," Ric admits, "Maybe even… even more than she called me Dick. I guess," he cocks his head to the side and whispers, very slowly, the words coming to him almost as soon as he thinks them, "I guess it was a way to honor them and their memory. And make something new from it."

Damian doesn't say anything until Dick sinks to the ground to his knees. He appears at the man's side, grabbing his arm with both of his and wrapping his arms around it.

"I did get something new from it, I think," Dick whispers, "and then I forgot it all. And then I left."

"Father and I didn't help."

No, they hadn't. Dick remembers the transition before. The realization that what he had seen in front of him wasn't fake or a dream. His parents were dead. Sitting in a dead stupor by the police cars, wrapped in a blanket and Bruce Wayne's nice jacket. He'd been pulled from the ring, hands and knees and feet wiped free from the blood (as much as they could; it dries quick and ugly). He'd ran briefly, to sit in some bushes outside the circus.

But Haley found him. And then Bruce Wayne found him. And they took him back home. And then the Social Services woman came and took him away and he had to say goodbye to not just his _family_ but his family and his home. And he lived in a terrible place and then was taken in by the man that had touched his shoulder lightly and it might not be alright right now, but it will get better and gave him his jacket.

And the manor was big and huge and massive and empty and not a home, never a home. Until never a home became not yet a home and then Dick waited and not yet became eventually, and he acknowledge and loved his new home. And it was tough, all the fighting and yelling and disagreeing because Dick knew Bruce cared (he was. he was his d–) but Bruce couldn't show it and while Dick could see it, he wanted to fight because he was so, so angry and frustrated and mad and so he left.

And this time. This time there was not easing in. The manor was just supposed to be his home, as it clearly was meant to be. But it wasn't. There was no transition. And Dick. Dick's medication made him all messed up, where he didn't think adoption counted (it did, it did, why hadn't Bruce done it sooner because it did count and it's what he'd wanted, for a long time, way before they ever started fighting) and he was angry and mad and didn't want anything to do with.

With home.

"I'm sorry," Dick rasped. "I'm so sorry, Damian. I love you, kiddo." And he grabbed Damian, unhooking his arm from the boy's, and crushed him to his chest.

(We were the best.)

"We were the best," Dick agreed. "We were the best and I missed you."

Sniffling. Damian speaks into his shirt, "I missed you too, Grayson. I missed you."

"I don't think I'm all there yet, but I'm ready to start to be."

And maybe that's all he needed.

He glances one last time at his Uncle's grave and smiles, very softly, sadly, but maybe a little happy too.

(He remembers feeling happy at the manor, realizing it was home, and feeling like he'd betrayed something. He hadn't, he knows now. He goes to the hospital with Bruce and tells his Uncle all the new stuff he's been doing. Holding on to both the old and the new, Dick happily steps forward toward the future.)

They go back to the Manor quietly again, in comfortable silence. And Dick's ready to talk, finally. He's finally ready. He doesn't remember a whole lot. But, he acknowledges, he's ready to come back. He's ready to try.

_Fin. _


End file.
